


Rewritten

by darklittlestories



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), implied - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 13:32:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15931445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darklittlestories/pseuds/darklittlestories
Summary: In that moment, it was as if everything were right and solid between them. No words unsaid. No resentments fermenting or knowledge withheld.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr screaming about HALLOWEEN IS COMING, the Thorki Big Bang, and adorable snakes at darklittlestories.
> 
> {There are further chapters coming; I messed up posting and this originally was marked complete with 2/2. Oops.}

He always knew he’d be found out. So Loki crafted the image of an insouciant false king layered over an arrogant, vain trickster.

Beneath these façades, he busied himself with plans. He had access to the most exclusive library in the nine realms and total freedom with his time. So he trained his mind as furiously as the Einherjar trained their bodies.

He honed those skills he possessed and learned yet more, accessing seiðr he’d never imagined possible.

Once, his interest was piqued by one of Odin’s journals with long passages scrubbed clean and written over in his father’s unfailingly neat hand. What was this palimpsest? He could feel the lingering traces of the spell that had removed the contents but there were no hints of the previous texts.

He had no time to examine the puzzle. His disguise was flimsy to anyone with a firm grasp of seiðr and there were disquieting rumors throughout the universe.

Heimdall had abandoned his post almost immediately, but had thankfully done so in confrontation with Loki in the Observatory, and he had left the Bifröst sword-key Hofung.   
  
But Loki could still see much even without Heimdall’s gifts, and sitting upon Odin’s great golden throne Hliðskjálf he confirmed his suspicions.

He was right to be scared—for himself and for Asgard.

* * *

Not so long ago, Loki’s guiding principle had been _purpose._

During his weeks of isolation in an overly bright cell, he’d had ample time to dig out the remaining roots of that purpose, planted there against his will and grown wild and fecund as stinging nettles or poison ivy.

He’d felt more himself then—prisoner in physicality yes, but cunning and adaptable and above all else. An opportunist. He’d latched onto Thor’s precarious plan to save Asgard and the wisp life of his arrogant little mortal.

It was truly beneath contempt—that delicate, breakable creature with her primitive tools playing at things so beyond her ken. How she even survived carrying the aether was beyond understanding.

Then, as stupid as his idiot brother, Loki had saved her. Despite himself, he hadn’t been able to bear seeing her birdlike bones snapped by the same hulking monsters who’d slain his mother.

He couldn’t allow Thor to grieve the girl.

And then before he could even think on what he’d done, he’d taken another of the Kursed with him into death.

He’d actually watched his brother mourn him; he’d worn Thor’s tears as he drew his last breaths.

Only they hadn’t been.

_Opportunity._

Much later he would learn that Jotun hearts aren’t covered by a wide plate of bone like Asgardians are, or surrounded by a fragile cage like the mortals.

His heart was almost entirely enclosed in a thick wall of bone.

When his shock wore off, Loki took a shaking, shallow breath and found himself shivering and cold and perfectly alone under the oppressive sky of Svartalfheim.

When that opportunity presented itself, Loki had seized it with his whole bloodied body and frantic mind.

Schooling himself, he’d returned to Asgard and found further opportunity: News of his death had sent Odin into the Sleep. Nearly exhausted, Loki had gathered his magic and dealt with his father, ensconcing him far away, and assumed his form.

So Loki had witnessed both his father and brother mourning him that day. That was not without a grim pleasure. And then Thor had come, singing Loki’s heroic praises to their apparent father, and manic glee boiled up inside Loki. He’d had to marshall all his will not to give himself away right then.

* * *

Then he’d met the palimpsest. The sister.

And everything had gone mad. He’d found himself once more the pet of an ancient, unknowable entity, whom he’d then betrayed.

He’d battled at Thor’s side with his heart singing, between bouts of bitter heartsick words masked as flippant quips. He’d been left shocked and writhing and—moreover—trying to decide if he deserved it.

Then after all of this, in the cruelest symmetry, his brother, who had once fought Loki to the apparent death for attempting the same crime, asked him to destroy a realm.

And he’d done it; his own false words becoming truth: “A good seat from which to watch Asgard burn.”

He watched as the only home he’d ever known, with all its ugly and beautiful memories, all his knotted contradictory sentiment, was engulfed in riotous flame.

And he’d held the cube.  
  
Touching it again had made him feel cold even as he’d run from the erupting flames.

It was a beacon for the Titan.

* * *

The tyrant was coming regardless, and perhaps with the Stone, Loki could bargain. The thought of seeing the giant again made his stomach feel curdled, his limbs nearly buckling.  

He leaned heavily against a metal support beam. Took several deep breaths, and murmured a cantrip he’d read in one of the tomes in Odin’s library. It was by far his favorite. It was very like a glamour for the psyche. A projection of calm that spread inward as well, it was a sort of armour against turmoil. He’d been relying on it more and more frequently of late.  

_Ég kalla á forna nornirnar. Þú munt sjá aðeins styrk. Ég er vígi._

_Ég er vígi._

_Ég er vígi._

He went to Thor’s room with a casual air. He smiled as he caught the bottle stopper. In that moment, it was as if everything were right and solid between them. No words unsaid. No resentments fermenting or knowledge withheld.   
  
It was as if Loki’s mind weren’t far-flung, always, either stuck on that dead rock in skull splitting pain or falling in the empty Void. It was just like Loki were really there. Really present in his body smiling warmly at Thor.

Really feeling it when he said, “I’m here.”


	2. Chapter 2

Thor felt too many emotions to name when the glass stopper failed to shimmer through Loki. 

He felt flayed and lain open already, having seen his very world shattered to pieces in order to save its people. To watch its golden towers and lush greenery immolated through one eye was devastating, but that anguish was laced with fierce pride in Loki.

Though he’d expected his brother to dash off in the aftermath to some new mischief, his heart had swelled with love and admiration for Loki’s bravery. 

And now he was here, nonchalant in Thor’s cabin and looking unruffled and well pleased, as if he’d pulled off a simple but elegant prank.   
  
Thor wanted that hug, and he wanted never to let go. To chain Loki to his side and to eat those accursed words he’d said on Sakaar. 

But Loki was never one for such tenderness, nor for being tethered. Especially not to Thor. 

So he affected a light air and just offered Loki a drink from that open decanter. It would be wise, Thor thought, to get as many drinks as possible into Loki before telling him there were no spare cabins on board.

Little by little, Thor grew more serious, and he could see Loki’s demeanor change respectively. His words skittered along the surface of the conversation and his eyes seemed to lose focus out of accordance with how much they’d drunk. 

Wary of losing the tentative alliance they’d won, Thor suggested they retire and turned his back to change into bedclothes and allow Loki privacy to do the same. The glass surfaces of the bottles reflected hundreds of distorted gleaming Lokis as they shimmered out of the Grandmaster’s colors and into deep green layers of chaisel. 

Wordlessly, they settled into bed, each of them kept awake too long by body heat along his back and the soft hum of the ship moving in space and time.

**Author's Note:**

> Icelandic: 
> 
> “I call on the ancient witches. You will see only strength. I am a fortress.  
> I am a fortress.  
> I am a fortress.” 
> 
> (This is just according to Google Translate. If anyone reads Icelandic and sees errors, let me know. I used Icelandic because it’s the contemporary language that’s closest to Old Norse, as I understand, though the pronunciation has changed.)


End file.
